


Going to California

by Dandesun



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Disneyland, Fluff, Hollywood, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Roadtrip, Sam does not know how to deal with a princess, So ridiculously fluffy, The Princess of Wakanda is losing patience with Sam, Tiaras, Touring through California
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6966775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandesun/pseuds/Dandesun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out of cryo-freeze and free from Hydra's triggers, Bucky and Steve decided to get away from it all for a bit and visit California... which has changed a small bit from the newsreels they remember from their youth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hollywood Boulevard

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of Marlene Dietrich and Steve comes directly from MCU Meta: the directory by Domenika Marzione.

Excerpt from Bucky’s Notebooks:

“Lilacs and laughter… pug nosed dream…” _what is that from? I remember dancing with someone and hearing those words and looking off to the side to see Steve. He was holding a cup of punch and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. I don’t remember her face… I don’t remember anything about her…_

“I know the meaning of the words ‘Ever After’ …” _but I don’t remember her face…_ any _of their faces._

 _I know… It was Frank Sinatra after he joined Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. That song was a hit. It was their first hit. That skinny twerp from Hoboken… I remember the song now._ Polka Dots and Moonbeams _. I danced to it a lot with a lot of different girls but I only remember Steve off to the side wanting to be anywhere else._

“Hey, hey! I found Sinatra!” Bucky waved at Steve a few paces up from where he was standing on Hollywood Boulevard.

Steve jogged the last few steps to look down at the star on the sidewalk. “That’s for TV.”

“So?”

Steve looked in the guidebook. “He’s got three. TV, film and music.”

“So?” Bucky repeated, squinting at Steve in the sun.

“So what do we know from TV? Where’s the one for music?” Steve looked at the book again. “It’s on Vine.” He pointed down the street. “That way.”

Well, Steve was insistent so Bucky shrugged and went with him. “You know, Sinatra was a skinny little twerp… I never understood why you couldn’t get more girls by playing that angle. The girls were _nuts_ for that guy.”

Steve sent Bucky a knowing look. “One, he was still taller than me. Two, I didn’t sing.”

“You sing all right,” Bucky said loyally.

“Not like him.” Steve stopped. “You’re not still trying out the idea of setting me up, are you?”

“No,” Bucky was firm. “You’re mine.”

Steve looked relieved.

“I’m just… remembering things.”

“Remembering’s good.” Steve smiled.

Bucky always liked seeing Steve smile. He didn’t smile much back when they were kids and, if he did, it was more grimace than smile. He didn’t smile much during the war, either, but that was to be expected. He didn’t smile all that much these days, either, really. Genuine smiles from Steve were precious and Bucky found himself gazing… probably with a dreamy expression on his face.

Steve noticed that and smiled even more.

Love was a strange thing. It wasn’t that loving Steve was new. Bucky couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love his scrawny little pal that was too dumb to run away from a fight. He thought, perhaps, that recognizing that love as something more… something deeper… that was the new thing.

Or maybe it was just that he allowed himself to recognize exactly what it was now.

Coming out of Wakandan cryo-freeze had been terrifying but as the scientists went down the trigger words to prove that their work on his behalf had been successful he realized that his mind wasn’t betraying him. They went down the list of triggers repeatedly and his mind remained his each time.

Steve had been smiling then. Bucky could see that through the blur of his own tears. He had fallen against Steve, clutching him with one arm and taking deep, gasping breaths and trying to keep the relieved sobs at bay.

He knew. Of course, Steve knew. Steve always knew. He got them somewhere private and no one seemed remotely interested in getting in the way.

Bucky was struggling, trying to keep it together and Steve was there, holding him. “It’s okay, Buck. I got you. I got you.”

Which was when Bucky kissed him.

Because when you come to a place where your mind is your own again and you finally realize exactly where and why your heart beats, you act on it. And it had been too long in realizing such things.

The most amazing thing about it all was that Steve didn’t stop it. He didn’t even flinch. He kissed back and his arms had tightened around Bucky as if promising to never let go.

How long had it been since James Barnes felt hope?

Too damn long.

But there it was, hope in all of it’s glory. King T’Challa and his team of scientists and head-shrinkers had gone over all sorts of information that Steve, Sam and Wanda had gotten from gathering intel. It was filtered through Clint who was very very good at that sort of thing and the time Bucky had spent in the freezer suddenly seemed completely worth it. There was the legitimate promise of brighter days ahead and leaving the darkness behind; which was when Steve started talking about reintroducing Bucky to the world and the places to see in it.

Hollywood had been a dazzling idea when they were kids. This beautiful place filled with beautiful people and dreams that came to life on celluloid. Could such a place really exist?

Not really.

“It’s really like Times Square,” Steve commented not for the first time as they walked down the boulevard in search of Frank Sinatra’s musical star.

“So you’ve said.”

“I mean… people dressed as characters so tourists can get their pictures taken with them? That’s exactly like Times Square now.”

Bucky paused and looked around. “More palm trees here.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah… the palm trees are nice.”

“Do you think Hollywood ever looked like what we think it did when we were kids?”

It was Steve’s turn to pause. “Well… probably not… but it definitely didn’t look like this.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know… a place where dreams come true, I guess.” He laughed. “I should know better. What would this place have to offer when my dreams already came true in Wakanda?”

Bucky felt himself blushing. Had he always felt this way but just didn’t know enough to realize it? Was it that way for both of them? “You know, if you had talked this way to the girls in Brooklyn…”

“The words didn’t come for them,” Steve interrupted. “The words come for you.”

Bucky whirled and grabbed Steve’s face in his hands, planting a feverish kiss on him. “And look what the words make me do.” He brayed a laugh when Steve blushed. “Jesus… are you the last one in the world who blushes anymore, pal?”

“People still blush,” Steve insisted, politely refraining from pointing out that Bucky had just done it himself.. “They even blush over getting kissed by their sweetheart.”

“If you say so, _sweetheart_ ,” Bucky shrugged with a grin.. “Let’s find that twerp from Hoboken already. Then what?”

“Marlene.”

“ _Destry Rides Again_ ,” Bucky remembered seeing that movie three times with Steve when it came out.

“She sure did.”

Bucky pulled up short at that. He remembers Steve telling him that he shared tour spots on the USO with Marlene Dietrich for a bit and they had shared a bit of private time together. “Show off…” he grumbled. “Or are you trying to make me jealous?”

“No reason to be jealous, Buck,” Steve says casually. “That was a long time ago. Besides, you know you’re tops to me.”

Bucky smiled. This was a strange new status quo being in love with his little punk of a pal but it’s one he found himself setting into easily… it seemed the most natural thing in the world. And even if Steve was at least an inch taller than him now, he was still going to think of him as that little punk who barely came up to his shoulders.

He raised his left arm to look across the tops of countless buildings to the Hollywood sign on the hills. Wakanda had very nicely fit him with a new arm. A vibranium arm, at that. And one that didn’t bear a red star anywhere on it. It was lighter than his old one but stronger, too. Bucky had admired it on the balcony of Steve’s room (that had quickly become his as well) and nearly blinded Steve when the sun ricocheted off his gleaming new appendage.

Bucky wore a sleeve on the arm now along with a glove. It was a bit conspicuous to be wearing such things in warm southern California weather but people didn’t comment on it. Bucky figured they thought it was a prosthetic of some kind and just carried on. They weren’t wrong but having a metal arm would have raised a lot of eyebrows and gotten a lot of attention.

Who needed that right now?

Steve saw where he was looking and joined him. The sign didn’t say Hollywoodland the way it did on the newsreels of their youth but there was still a thrill to be found from those big block letters on the hills above Los Angeles. Maybe the Chinese Theatre didn’t look quite so grand as Steve expected and Hollywood Boulevard was crowded and dingy rather than sparkling and glamorous but there was some magic in the air all the same.

After all, he was here with Bucky. They used to talk about going to California and seeing the Pacific after seeing some grand Hollywood epic in the theaters in Brooklyn. Back then, California was an exotic, faraway land especially compared to Brooklyn in the winter. The image had stuck. They decided on California specifically once Bucky could feel reasonably secure with himself after his de-programming.

“Is the sun brighter here?” Bucky wondered aloud, leaning against Steve with a sigh.

“Seems like it,” Steve agreed. He wasn’t sure, though. To him, now that he had Bucky back, the sun was brighter everywhere.


	2. Disneyland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I happen to love Disneyland (hey, you can get your picture taken with Cap there... and Thor!) and the idea of Steve and Bucky wandering around tickled me. Especially with tiaras. But also, these are guys who went under a decade before Disneyland even opened so I thought that was an interesting idea to play with.

Excerpt from Bucky’s notebooks:

_There was a Mickey Mouse short back when Steve and I were really just kids. Steve was around ten and I was eleven. Just kids. Mickey wanted to fly like Lindy and there was a bit where he messed up his hair to look like him._

_Steve always had that shock of blond hair that was perpetually messed up. It was messed up because he was always getting into fights… or coughing so hard he could barely stand upright… but it was a similar look to Lindy’s messed up hair and I remember thinking Steve had the same kind of heart and spirit and it wasn’t fair that he didn’t have the body to match._

_Mickey Mouse was always the little guy, just like Steve. Steve loved those cartoons… seeing the little guy manage to pull through against the odds and the big bully that always tried to stomp him and steal his girl… that had to give him hope._

_Not that Steve ever had a Minnie… or maybe that was me? Am I his Minnie now? I don’t know… I probably am better suited as Donald. Do Mickey and Donald have a thing?_

_I may be overthinking this._

_Steve told me that Erskine picked him out because it was time for the little guy to have a chance to make a difference. I think Erskine picked him for more reasons than that but I always knew that Steve was made of better stuff than the rest of us._

_And I still worry about what Zola’s formula did to me. I think a lot of people do. Steve doesn’t. He says that the kid who protected him and took care of him and never turned his back on him was a kid he believed in to come through any enhancement formula. Whenever I get twitchy about it, Steve goes down the list of his own flaws to make me feel better. It’s true, Steve was never perfect… but I still think he’s better than most of us and he always was. The fact that he doesn’t think so just proves it._

“This place is ridiculous.”

Bucky burst out laughing at Steve’s dry comment. What was he supposed to do? Steve stood there at the railing eating a Mickey Mouse shaped ice cream bar wearing a Cinderella tiara on his head. Was he supposed to take _any_ of that seriously?

Steve grinned in spite of himself. He had tossed the Snow White tiara at Bucky as a joke. They both remembered seeing the movie in Brooklyn when it came out. Everyone they knew did. Disney had made a feature length cartoon and even though a lot of people said it would flop it didn’t because no one would stop talking about it and everyone wanted to see it.

Bucky had laughed and put it on and then studied the literal _wall_ of different colored tiaras to find one for Steve. The light blue one with the blond princess fit the bill. _Cinderella_ had come out long after they were both under ice but everyone knew the story. So they had walked out of the store in colorful beaded tiaras and barely anyone blinked.

Hell, they weren’t even the only guys wearing them. Or the only grown ups. Disneyland may have been crowded but the sign outside proclaimed it The Happiest Place on Earth. The people inside seemed to agree even if the lines were long. Sure, sometimes kids were cranky and grabby and shouty but there were still a lot of people who walked around with their friends or family smiling and laughing.

“It’s not much like Coney Island, that’s for sure,” Steve continued. 

“It’s cleaner,” Bucky nodded. “And it’s got a riverboat.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder where said riverboat was paddling around the Rivers of America. “I like it. It’s a complete escape from the real world.”

Steve nodded. Well, if there was one thing he’d be happy to give Bucky, it was escapism. Looking at it that way actually made it all better. The detail in the different lands was impressive and Steve began looking at everything with an artist’s eye instead of one belonging to a kid who grew up during the Great Depression.

He looked at the stump of the petrified tree that sat in the center of the alcove they were currently standing in. “Kind of nice to see something that’s older than us, huh?”

“There’s a whole forest of those things if we drive north,” Bucky pointed out. “According to your library of guidebooks, anyway.”

Bucky wasn’t exaggerating. Steve had gotten his hands on volumes of California guidebooks and had poured through them like there was going to be a test.

“They’re not petrified, though,” Bucky continued. “They’re living and probably still growing and everything.”

“I know,” Steve sounded slightly perturbed. As if he didn’t know? Those were his guidebooks, not Bucky’s! “They’re on the list.”

“A list?” Bucky cackled. “Of course there’s a list! Is there a list for when we have sex because I’d really like to see that. Step One: Kiss. Step Two: Kiss some more, maybe with tongue. Step Three: Even more kissing… with some soft moaning. Step Four--” he deftly dodged when Steve took a casual swipe at him.

“Jerk,” Steve muttered.

Bucky hooted to himself in satisfaction.

“Are you complaining about the kissing?” Steve demanded.

“With a ripe little tomato like you?” Bucky feigned innocence. “Never! Come on, let’s go on that pirate ride.”

When they got through the line and were settled into the backseat of the ship that was going to take them on ‘a swashbuckling voyage,’ Bucky leaned against Steve. “So… do you neck on this ride or what?” It was certainly dark enough as they floated in a fabricated swamp while people dined nearby.

“Bank’s closed,” Steve sniffed haughtily.

“Aw don’t be like that,” Bucky nudged him.

“You’re as ridiculous as this place,” Steve groused but he put his arm around Bucky’s shoulders as they went into a dark tunnel… and plunged unexpectedly down a hill.

“The hell?!”

And there was a song echoing through the caverns… grottoes… wherever they were. They went down another hill and the people in front them screamed delightedly and some started singing along with the song and Steve and Bucky looked at each other and burst out laughing.

The caverns… grottoes… wherever they were, were lit in blues and purples. The sound of rushing water was all around them as they passed a beach with skeletons, then the wreck of a ship in a stormy sea with a skeleton at the wheel and Steve settled back and really started to enjoy it. Pirate stories were always a favorite back in the day. He used to dream of sailing the high seas, swinging a sword and searching for buried treasure. Those dreams were a far cry from his actual life where he often found it hard to breathe.

He felt Bucky’s hand rest on the nape of his neck, his fingers tapping along in time to the music, as they floated through scenes of a pirate bar (with skeletons drinking within) and the Captain’s Quarters of a ship with maps and a treasure room piled high with sparkling bullion and gems and other items of opulence.

The sound of cannon fire made them both jump instinctively. Bucky remained tense but Steve moved his hand to stroke his thigh soothingly and he began to relax. It was still pirates, after all. Pirates attacked things with swords and cannons. Everyone knew that.

The burning village left a sour taste in his mouth, though.

As they were dragged uphill past a character they had figured out was Captain Jack Sparrow by his second appearance in the ride, Steve looked at Bucky. “You okay?”

“Sure.” Bucky’s brows knit together to tell a slightly different story.

Steve stayed close as they exited the ride and were deposited into New Orleans Square. They both blinked a little at the bright sunlight.

“That was fun?” Steve was studying Bucky because Steve was always able to detect the slightest shifts in Bucky’s moods. The talent had become even more acute since they started sharing a bed.

“You still love pirate stories like you used to, Stevie?”

Steve wasn’t buying it. He turned and headed down the street away from the main crowds into a smaller, curving path that curled around the various shops. A saxophonist played nearby and they stopped to listen. “I haven’t been able to dwell too much on my past,” Steve said quietly. “There’s been too much to catch up on.”

“Maybe you’ve been in need of an escape as much as me,” Bucky pointed out.

“Sam asked me what made me happy…”

“You couldn’t answer, could you?” Bucky tossed a lop-sided, knowing grin at Steve. “Hell, you haven’t been able to answer that question since pirate stories were your favorite thing. Look, the pirate ride was fun but the burning village less so… even if it was meant to be a joke or whatever.”

“Okay.” Steve said that a lot. He just accepted the things that Bucky said to him because, most of the time, it was about Bucky explaining how he felt after years of having feelings and reactions to things ignored or wiped out. Steve never asked for details about Bucky’s memories as the Winter Soldier unless he got the specific idea that Bucky wanted him to.

This wasn’t one of those times so Steve just let him talk.

“Is there a ride here where they don’t set fire to things?”

“The Haunted Mansion’s right over there,” Steve pointed further down the path. “I don’t know if they need to set anything on fire. Place is already supposed to be filled with ghosts.”

“Okay, but if I don’t like it, I’m literally jumping across the water to that island and you’ll just have to come and find me.” Bucky pointed at Tom Sawyer Island.

“You know I can jump across that distance, too.”

“You’ll still have to catch me.”

As it turned out, Bucky actually liked the Haunted Mansion. He did have to remind himself that an amusement part wasn’t going to build a death trap when the voice in the first room taunted him about finding a way out but after that he settled down.

It helped that Steve kept wondering out loud how they did all the effects. He was amazed by all of it and Bucky had to agree… it was all pretty cool. Between the two of them, they had been subject to some crazy technology over the years and being able to wonder how Disneyland made ghosts dance in a ballroom… well, it erased some of those years for a brief time.

“I think we should skip the fireworks tonight,” Steve said thoughtfully.

“On my account?”

“We can see them from the hotel room,” Steve said. “And if the sound doesn’t bother you, or me, too much we can check out one of the shows tomorrow night. We’ve got another day.”

“Do they really bother you, Steve?”

“When they thawed me out, my most recent memories were of war,” Steve told him. “They did this big ‘Welcome Back!’ fanfare nonsense and set off a bunch of fireworks and I white knuckled it the whole time because it was just too close. Since then?” He shrugged with that familiar grimace. “I’ve been fighting all sorts of wars. I’d just as soon skip it myself.”

Bucky studied him for a moment and nodded. Steve was stoic and was never the guy to show too much of his own feelings save for, well, for him. Steve would grin and bear the fanfare and situations he hated because that’s just who he was.

As dusk fell, the lights came on and both men found themselves transported. It was much easier to believe you were in the Old West when walking past lanterns that gave off more than a vague illusion of being oil rather than electric. When they got to Main Street, they slowed down. A turn of the century small town in Missouri wasn’t anything like Brooklyn in the thirties but it was a hell of a lot closer than anything else they’d seen in the current world. They picked their way slowly through the crowds of people camped out to get a good view of the fireworks and their hands met seemingly of their own accord under the warm glow of the lights.

“Still think this place is ridiculous?” Bucky asked as they turned to take one last look down Main Street to the castle.

“Of course it is,” Steve said softly. “Did I say that ridiculous was bad? You’re wearing a tiara.” He nodded to the item on Bucky’s head. “Something about that’s pretty amazing.”

“Look in the mirror, doll-face,” Bucky quipped. “You are, too.”

It was the same kind of back and forth they’d done since they were kids except that the endearments weren’t so much ‘punk’ or ‘jerk’ (though there was plenty of that still) because Bucky liked to try on new pet names for Steve.

Steve wasn’t as successful but Bucky suspected that was because Steve had never had a girl of his own before getting turned into the magnificent specimen he was now. ‘Sweet cheeks’ and ‘dollface’ just didn’t sound right coming out of Steve and he knew it. The one time he had tried ‘Sweet cheeks’ he stumbled over the words badly and sent Bucky into conniptions of laughter.

So instead of pet names, Steve just waited until they were alone and lunged at Bucky, fastening their mouths together and falling onto the bed.

They were tangled together when the fireworks started. Several explosive pops outside their window sent them both into defensive crouches until Steve straightened up. He looked out the window and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Fireworks,” he sighed and then looked at Bucky. “Where did that knife come from?”

“Oh,” Bucky flipped it in his hand casually. “Around.”

Steve shook his head. “Come and see…”

Bucky did so, slipping in front of Steve and leaning back against him. The fireworks were impressive… far more than anything they ever saw when they were kids. What they watched that night was probably the sum total of every fireworks show in the country back then. And then some.

“What _does_ make you happy, Steve?”

“You do,” was the prompt reply. “Ever since I woke up… I just didn’t belong. Even seeing Peggy again, as much as I loved her then… she’d moved on, she’d lived her life. She married a guy and had kids and grand-kids and we didn’t belong to each other anymore. I thought we did once, I thought we had a future… if there was going to be one after the war.

“Turns out we both had a future and it wasn’t together. Hell, even when I was a kid I didn’t belong. You’re the only home I ever had, Buck. I just went back to fighting because it’s all that anyone seemed to want from me. Even _after_ the sky opened up and shit out a bunch of aliens and armored worms I didn’t know what else to do but fight.”

“Fighting wasn’t even what you were good at back then, Stevie,” Bucky murmured.

“When I saw you on that street…” Steve trailed off. “Everything I was trying to make sense of went careening out of control, nothing made sense, except for two things: stopping Hydra and trying to get to you.”

“You gave up a hell of a lot for me, Steve,” Bucky whispered.

“But I got so much more in saving you. I would have taken you in, you know, if you’d been the one to set off that bomb. But you weren’t… you didn’t do that… and I’d already failed you once.”

“You didn’t fail me,” Bucky burst out. “It was war and shit like that happens.”

“Shit like this,” Steve rapped on Bucky’s vibranium arm, “doesn’t just happen. Shit like this,” he gestured to himself, “doesn’t just happen.”

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, we are… but we belong together, so that makes it worth it. It makes me happy.”

Well, Bucky wasn’t going to argue. He just silently led Steve back to bed. After what he had lived through he knew that when you found where you belonged, who you belonged with, the rest wasn’t worth bothering about. He wasn’t just a weapon with Steve and Steve wasn’t just a symbol with him. They were two people who had found home.


	3. California Adventure

Excerpt from Bucky’s notebooks:

_I don’t wake up screaming. I only ever screamed when they used that electro-mind-wipe monstrosity because it hurt like a son of a bitch and I could see memories being ripped right the fuck out of my head… while I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it._

_Helplessness is a terrible thing. I think that’s one of the things that makes Steve so angry about what Hydra did to me. They conditioned me to be helpless while they continued to shatter the remaining pieces of me that were still in there. The pieces were so small that they couldn’t unite to fight back… until I saw Steve. Maybe there were other times where the tiny shards of James Buchanan Barnes were able to come together and recognize things that the Winter Soldier came upon but I don’t remember them. Not yet._

_Seeing Steve was different because even if I didn’t recognize my own name, I recognized him and I remember panicking for the first time that my scattered, shattered brain could recall._

_As much as we both need to catch up to the rest of the world, one of the nicest things about being with Steve is that he’s not constantly talking to me about things I don’t know and he’s not constantly making suggestions about what we can do to find out about stuff. I couldn’t stand Sam at first because I didn’t understand half of the things that came out of his mouth and I couldn’t even use context to help._

_Sam’s actually not so bad. I had to just tell him ‘I don’t understand what you just said’ about five times before he was able to recognize my lost face. Which apparently looks a lot like my ‘I’m going to kill you’ face. So I guess I understand why he didn’t pick up on it right away._

_Where was I? Oh… I don’t wake up screaming but I do wake up flailing sometimes. Often enough although not as often as I used to. Steve’s made of pretty strong stuff so he can take it… even though I sometimes default to that frail little guy in my head and get worried about hurting him._

_He doesn’t mind and he always finds something positive to say. “I don’t bruise as easy as I used to.” “You came to in about a minute that time, Buck, that’s way better than last time.” “Don’t worry, Buck, we’ve got plenty of time for you to get used to the world again. We’ll help each other.”_

_Sometimes I think I don’t deserve him. And sometimes… sometimes I’m certain that I do… because I went through hell for a long fucking time and I’ve damn well earned my angel._

The first thing Steve saw when they walked through the gates of California Adventure was the gas station. It took him aback because, aside from the shelves full of plush toys, it looked like it had been taken right out of the thirties… well, except for how clean it was.

The second thing he noticed was the car.

“Buck… Buck... “ he grabbed for Bucky’s arm. “Look…”

Bucky looked and his jaw dropped. “Look at _that_.”

They drifted over in a daze.

“A Packard Coupe,” Bucky breathed. “Just sitting right here…”

“We can touch it, right?” Steve wondered. “I’m touching it.” He stepped forward and ran his hand along the creamy yellow hood.

The 1937 Packard Coupe, as that’s the car they were transfixed by, was a high-end machine when it was released and was certainly not the kind of car they saw in _their_ neighborhood. It required specific trips to the fancy parts of town to see a car like this one. Or, at the very least, find your way to a route that the kind of person who owned such a car would take between home and wherever people like that went.

A vehicle like that got noticed back in their day and here it was, pretty as a picture, sitting right in the entrance. And people just walked on by it, not noticing at all.

“People today have no appreciation of art,” Bucky groused as he noticed how little attention the beauteous car was getting. “Look at that. There’s _dozens_ of those plushy toys on the shelf but this… this is the _only_ Packard Coupe sitting here.”

They hovered around the car for about twenty minutes exclaiming over the smallest detail with a reverence that was generally reserved for holy relics.

“I think seeing this beauty is worth the price of admission,” Bucky grinned as they managed to tear themselves away and proceed down Buena Vista Street. 

But Steve’s attention was already being drawn away. “Listen to the music,” he breathed.

The ambient music sounded like something they’d be listening to on the radio in the old days. Steve looked around and wondered if this is what he hoped to find on Hollywood Boulevard. Art deco storefronts that housed numerous gift shops still set the stage for a world long since gone. When they reached the hub they saw a replica of the Carthay Circle Theater standing proudly as the focal point.

And then an actual trolley car rolled by ringing its bell and Steve had to sit down.

To be fair, Bucky was kind of blown away, too. It was strange being suddenly surrounded by familiar things that were not at all familiar and also not at all real. It was all obviously by design, but he had to admit, it felt really good to look at it all and feel like he wasn’t so far removed from his life.

When a group of musicians in an open top car came gliding down the street with a beautiful woman singing ‘The Sunny Side of the Street’ Steve leaned over to Bucky and whispered in his ear. “Think they’ll let us move here?”

Bucky guffawed. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty sure this is more what I was imagining Hollywood Boulevard to look like. It’s certainly the way I pictured it as a kid.”

“All gleaming and sunny and bright colors?” Bucky teased. “Yeah… so did I. I mean, Brooklyn is Brooklyn but sometimes a guy just wants to be warm.” He looked around, admiring the art deco fountain before noticing a sign on the building beyond it. “Hey… Ice cream.”

Steve hid a smile. Bucky had an obsession with ice cream and it was difficult for him to pass any by without trying it. 

“I’m getting some. You want some? I’m getting some.”

“Go ahead,” Steve said. “Surprise me.”

Bucky loped the short distance to the shop and disappeared inside.

Steve settled back and soaked up the atmosphere. To get this much joy out of seeing an old trolley car would probably have resulted in eye rolls and indulgent smirks from others he knew but he didn’t care. It was just nice to see something familiar.

And this was a lot more welcome than the staged setting that Fury had set up for him when he first woke up from the ice. To go from that to Times Square in the here and now had been more than a little jarring.

To go from Southern California, even the area immediately surrounding Disneyland which was much different from the rest, to this fantasy version of what once was… it was a pleasant surprise.

“Here,” Bucky sat down and handed him a confection that required study.

“What is this?”

“Hand dipped ice cream bar,” Bucky said in wonder.

“What’s all this stuff on it?”

“The whole herd.”

“What?”

“That’s what they called it,” Bucky explained. “Sprinkles, pearls, these Mickey Mouse shaped sprinkle things and this blue stuff is Pop Rocks, apparently. I got you mint ice cream and milk chocolate and I got vanilla bean and dark chocolate because I refuse to buy the exact same ice cream as my doll if I don’t have to.” Bucky took a bite of his bar and uttered a muffled yet rapturous moan.

With a recommendation like that, Steve didn’t hesitate.

“Such decadence,” he sighed when he could actually talk. The ice cream was delicious and everything on top of that was just bonus. And the Pop Rocks doing their snap and crackle just topped everything off.

“I’d move here for these,” Bucky announced. “No one knows what an egg cream is here but the ice cream bars are a fairly even trade.”

“You might be able to convince some local artisan to start up with egg creams,” Steve suggested. “You did it in Wakanda.”

“Yeah, I did…” Bucky’s pride at that particular coup was evident. “But I don’t know if egg creams taste as good without the stink of Brooklyn that goes with it.”

“That sounds like a personal preference and I can’t help you with that, soldier.”

Bucky mused silently for a moment. “You know, as far as pet names go, Soldier isn’t bad.”

“Really?” Steve was surprised because that’s certainly not why he said it.

“Yeah, I mean, it fits, doesn’t it? I was a soldier… I became the Winter Soldier… I’m still kind of both. Try it out in bed and see how it goes.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“But, you know, I wouldn’t have a problem with you calling me something in French or Italian. That could be damn sexy.” Bucky was getting a kick out of the flush that crept over Steve’s cheeks. “Not German, though. Or Russian. Nyet nyet nyet.”

“Noted.” Steve couldn’t keep the love-sick grin off of his face. “Now, we should see what else this place has to offer other than a Packard Coupe, the Carthay Circle and ice cream.”

“Let’s find more of those turkey legs,” Bucky suggested. “Those were delicious.”

“Come on…” Steve pulled Bucky up with him. “There’s an animation thing that way,” he pointed to where he was talking, “and I want to check it out.”

Bucky wondered how long Steve had studied the map of the park because that would dictate quite a few things. A cursory glance was generally enough for Steve to get the layout of just about anything but if he’d spent any time looking it over then it meant Steve knew where everything was and probably how far it all was to their current location at any given moment.

It was actually quite impressive. Bucky was no slouch when it came to maps and logistics, either, but there was just something about Steve in Leader Mode. Bucky was happy to follow… view was better anyway.

The Art of Animation featured a large room surrounded with equally large screens upon which clips and stills of several Disney movies played. It focused on one movie at a time and then would shift into the next and on and on. Steve was transfixed at the artwork, particularly the conceptual work and Bucky, after he scanned the room and noted all of the exits and possible weapons, found it pretty interesting as well.

“We’ve missed a lot,” Steve said ruefully.

“We can catch up,” Bucky reminded him.

“Yeah, it’s kind of exciting actually. This is just one company and look at this beautiful work they’ve created. Think of all the rest of that we can catch up on. I’ve barely been able to spend any time in a museum since they defrosted me.” Steve shrugged. “I spent most of my time trying to figure how how much had changed in New York, being fucking scandalized by how much things cost, finding out that ninety-eight percent of the people I knew are dead and just… being lost.”

“Tell me about it,” Bucky nodded. “I still haven’t gotten used to the concept that instead of coffee these places serve milkshakes.”

Steve’s eyes crinkled up as he grinned. “What’s that about, huh?”

Bucky was spared trying to come up with an answer because an announcement echoed through the room that had Steve dragging him off to one side of the expansive room to get in line. The Animation Academy for that particular time was drawing Goofy and Steve had to participate. The artist in residence showed everyone in the audience how to draw the character step by step and each step was punctuated by various moans of despair or crows of triumph from the participants. When they were finished, Steve and Bucky showed each other their work.

“Aw man…” Bucky groused. “Yours is perfect. Mine looks like a deformed balloon animal.”

Steve burst out laughing which only encouraged Bucky.

“Look, yours practically sparkles! Mine is all… wah-wah,” he made the sad trombone noise which made Steve laugh even harder. “On the upside, when we petition to move here, you can work as an artist and keep me fed with ice cream and turkey legs.”

“It’s good to have a purpose in life,” Steve’s eyes twinkled.

They continued through the park, devouring the snacks they came across as they went, walking through an area that was populated with anthropomorphic cars featured in a movie they hadn’t gotten to yet before they were greeted with their first view of Paradise Pier.

“Are you kidding me?!” Bucky howled with delight. “A Disney West Coast homage to Coney Island?! Look at that coaster, Steve! We’re going on it right now!”

Steve didn’t think he’d throw up the way he did after the Cyclone. He had spent too much time in too many instances testing the mettle of his super-soldier stomach but the frail kid from Brooklyn was still in there somewhere and was eyeing the loop-de-loop with a great deal of trepidation.

Both he and Bucky stopped short when they saw how the coaster took off. Instead of a slow click-click-click up the first hill, the train shot out as if fired from a cannon. The momentum was more than enough to carry it up the first hill and beyond.

“We have to try this,” Bucky sounded almost hypnotized.

Well, there was no fighting it. And Steve reminded himself that he had the habit of jumping out of planes without a parachute so this was no big deal. And it _was_ fun.

Bucky thought it was three times in a row fun. He shouted and shrieked with every hill and curve and declared the ride vastly superior to Space Mountain, which they had ridden the day before.

“The only downside to this is that it doesn’t make you sick,” he crowed.

“You’re an ass,” Steve insisted, giving him a shove. “Motion sickness isn’t even a thing with me anymore.”

Steve liked California Adventure a little bit better than Disneyland. It wasn’t as crowded, though in some areas it was hard to notice, and while Steve had liked seeing the horse-drawn trolleys on Main Street it just didn’t have the same effect on him as seeing Buena Vista Street or Paradise Pier. The colors alone made everything so much more vivid which they weren’t before Erskine saw something in him.

This was nostalgia for him in a more personal way and as they looked around at other guests of the park, Steve wondered if any of them had a similar connection to that glorious art deco entry way. Maybe only some of the elderly visitors that were riding in scooters.

Bucky understood, though.

“The only thing this place is missing is cotton candy,” Bucky remarked as they toured through Paradise Pier again.

“There’s some,” Steve pointed at one of the shops where bags of blue or pink cotton could be seen.

“Not that shit,” Bucky sounded disgusted. “The actual stuff they make with the cart and everything. Bagged up cotton candy,” he snorted. “Might as well try to eat the bed sheets.”

Steve loved how excited Bucky was about it all. Then again, Bucky had always had more fun when they went to Coney Island. Steve was the one worried about throwing up all the time. Bucky met lots of girls there while Steve was the hanger-on.

In a lot of ways, Steve could see that walking underneath the California Screamin’ roller coaster as dusk fell and the lights came on was a complete re-do for himself. Specific memories of Coney Island didn’t trail him here. This was new, this was him and Bucky together after everything and making new memories in a new place. That it had hints of their past in it was fine but he didn’t have to look anywhere and see himself hurling in a trash can or trailing behind Bucky as the poor girl who got stuck with Steve as her ‘date’ did everything she could to avoid even looking at him while Bucky charmed the one he wanted.

“So, we’ve got the Coupe, the trolley cars and now the pier amusement park,” Bucky mused, interrupting him. “It’s kind of the whole package, isn’t it?”

“Kind of is,” Steve agreed, keeping his own thoughts to himself for the moment.

“We’d get bored if we actually did move here, I mean… it’s not real, it’s pure fantasy but, maybe a vacation house, hm?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Besides,” Bucky looked around. “There’s a lot of people here and that can start to wear on a guy.”

Steve nodded. Bucky didn’t do so well in crowds. It made him twitchy and paranoid and Steve really couldn’t blame him for that after everything. Bucky really did prefer anonymity and living as close to underground as he could get. As much as he wanted to shed his Winter Soldier programming, that underground spy/assassin conditioning was extremely hard to shake. As good as Wakanda was, ingrained habits were hard to break and even as a kid, Bucky had needed to get away from time to time.

“Don’t worry, Buck. I hear there’s lots of open space in California. Tomorrow, we’ll go see if we can find some.”

“Yeah?”

“You know I’d do anything for you, Soldier.”

One side of Bucky’s mouth turned up in an affectionate smile. “Yeah… yeah, I do know that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a definite fondness for California Adventure. For one thing, you can drink there. I always tell people that my favorite ride is "Wine Time" which is basically me and whoever I'm with drinking wine and soaking up the ambiance. They reworked the whole park in recent years and I'd say it does work better than what they initially had. There's more Walt there and since Disneyland is steeped in Walt there was a definite disconnect before. It's got a more cohesive feel to it now.
> 
> And, again, wine.


	4. Highway 101 - South of Santa Barbara

Excerpt from Bucky’s Notebook:

_Steve doesn’t like to say the word victim about me. He prefers to say survivor. I think it’s meant to build me up and I think it does. But I think victim is a word that fits, too. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to acknowledge that things were done to me… they were done to me against my will… I explained that to Steve and he understood but I can tell he still doesn’t like it._

_But that’s Steve’s issue because of the way he grew up and how weak he was and how easy it was for people to take advantage of that. Steve hated to be a victim and he fought against it with everything he had… at times, it wasn’t much more than his guts. He had a lot of guts._

_Still does._

_He says I’ve got a hell of a lot of guts, too. “How would you have survived, otherwise?” See? He used the word ‘survive.’ I think it’s more complicated than that because I was drugged up, frozen and conditioned for a lot of that time. It wasn’t so much a matter of survival as it was being put in storage. Was it any different for him when he was under the ice?_

_As my mind knits together again, I remember things… but there’s so much I don’t know. I wasn’t kept abreast of current events or anything, I was just taught how to use certain weapons, certain vehicles, certain technologies that were necessary for my missions. I’ve heard music but couldn’t tell you a damn thing about the song or the group or the singers or anything like that. I wasn’t meant to take part in the world, I was meant to do a specific job and anything that wasn’t necessary for that job was kept from me. Steve and I are both lost in completely different ways._

_I asked Steve how he dealt with the changes._

_“I focused on what was the same… sun still comes up… the moon goes through it’s phases… spring follows winter… and then I add on to that.”_

_But at the same time, he wants to know and he makes me want to know, too. Sometimes, in the morning, he’ll look at me and say ‘Let’s go see what’s different…’_

Bucky was asleep. 

It was the traffic that did it.

Going north from Anaheim resulted in packed freeways no matter which way you went. Surrounded by cars, houses, shopping centers, business centers, industrial parks… the frustrating monotony of it all got to Bucky pretty quickly.

So he dropped a hat over his eyes and went to sleep.

Well, Steve wasn’t going to begrudge anything that kept him from punching out the car windows out of sheer frustration (something he was tempted to do himself) so he put the forties channel on the satellite radio and carried on with the start-stop traffic for the next two hours.

But once they reached Calabasas, Steve noticed that actual landscape battled with the never-ending sprawl of ‘civilization.’ Craggy hillsides that were green -- people everywhere had been talking about the rain over the winter after years of extreme drought -- and swaths of vibrant color; orange, purple, white, yellow. Steve began to realize the allure of California. It was so much more than sprawling cities and amusement parks and Hollywood… and they weren’t even out of Los Angeles county yet.

Steve considered waking up Bucky to see the change in scenery but he knew more cities were coming up. He’d wake Bucky up in Ventura so they could get something to eat. Otherwise, it was best that he let his love rest. 

Rest did not come easy for James Barnes.

The drive, however, had become much easier for Steve. He came down a grade and saw part of a hillside completely covered in cactus, he saw fields upon fields upon fields and wondered what was growing there, and then it sort of turned back into shopping centers, gas stations and fast food places. Well, that was to be expected.

And still Bucky slept.

It was still somewhat strange and new that he and Bucky were now… what was the word? Boyfriends? Lovers? Both? Neither one had been too eager to put a label on it because, well, how could they do that considering what their lives had been?

Sam had expressed concern at how quickly everything had shifted. “Do you guys just not do things at normal speed… ever?” Steve appreciated Sam’s counselor self making an appearance and it was good to have friends watching out for you but Sam didn’t know everything and Steve had always been good at keeping things close to the vest.

Sam had also noted that he wasn’t aware that Steve ‘swung that way’ and Steve had shrugged and commented that it hadn’t ever come up.

Because it honestly hadn’t. Steve came out of the ice having lost his entire world and everyone in it. His immediate memories were of the war, of losing Bucky, of hearing Peggy’s last words to him as he drove the plane down into oblivion… and suddenly, everything was different. He supposed _some_ might come out of that and immediately start wondering how soon they could get laid but that hadn’t ever been his main motivation in life anyway.

Really, Steve was just trying to figure out what the hell had happened.

But the idea of being attracted to Bucky seemed to be a huge surprise for everyone else while, for Steve, it was just the way it was. Bucky had _always_ been attractive. And Steve grew up in an area where men having sex with other men was downright common. He supposed the part that kind of threw him was that Bucky was the only man he’d ever been attracted to while he’d been attracted to a variety of women. Smart, tough, gutsy women, sure, because he seemed to have a type but not just _one_ woman.

But while Bucky may have been the only man Steve had been attracted to it was also true that Bucky was the only person that Steve would do _anything_ for. His being alive had changed everything and when he had kissed Steve… well, that had changed everything again.

That was just the effect Bucky had on Steve’s world.

Everyone seemed very interested in defining what the relationship was and what Steve’s sexuality was and so on and so forth which got very irritating very fast. Steve had lost patience with it early on. It was very simple. He loved Bucky and Bucky loved him. What the hell else mattered? Peggy was dead, Sharon was cute and tough and had been very helpful during the mess with Zemo and the Accords but Bucky was _here_ and he wasn’t hiding anymore and he wasn’t running anymore and wanted to reclaim his life and part of that, according to him, had been to finally, _finally_ claim Steve as his.

“I should have done it before,” Bucky had said fiercely. “But that was then and now is now and I’m not making that mistake twice.”

“Sooo... “ Sam had wondered, brow furrowed, “you’re both gay, then?”

“I believe the term is bisexual,” Wanda had corrected him.

“How about I’m me,” Steve had snapped, “and Bucky’s Bucky and we’re just who we are?”

_Hell, we’re not even Captain America and the Winter Soldier anymore_ , Steve thought. _We really just are who we are, Steve and Bucky, whatever that means these days._

Bucky stirred slightly and then woke suddenly. He was silent and still for a few moments and Steve knew he was taking inventory of his surroundings. It was something he had noticed from the start with how Bucky was now.

“Hey,” Steve said casually.

“Hey,” Bucky relaxed slightly back into the seat.

“Hungry?”

“I could eat.”

That was Bucky’s under-stated way of saying he was starving.

But that was good because Steve had a destination in mind and within twenty minutes, they were sitting on the hood of the car with a veritable feast of fish tacos and shrimp wontons and poke with avocado and a view of the Pacific down the street.

“Did you ever imagine you’d get a feast like this back in Brooklyn?” Bucky wondered.

“Big splurge then was hot dogs,” Steve laughed. “Sam assumed I missed the ‘good old days’ when I first met him. I told him the food was much better now.”

“We used to boil everything,” Bucky nodded. “And I lost track of all the different kinds of fruit they had in Wakanda. Even when I went underground after the whole thing in DC I was kind of amazed at the options available. Had to be careful, though. I really wasn’t used to actual food.”

“Yeah, King T’Challa’s people identified a lot of issues while you were under and did a lot to try to normalize your functions so coming out wouldn’t be a huge shock. The things they did for you were damn impressive.”

“Yeah,” Bucky stared down towards the ocean for several minutes. “Just something about eating with an ocean view, huh, Stevie?”

“Well… I wanted to take you someplace nice.”

“Hood of a car’s nice,” Bucky nodded. “We going down there?” He gestured towards the ocean with one hand.

“Not here... “ Steve shook his head. “A bit further north.”

Bucky continued to eat, studying his food every now and then. “Sure couldn’t find this in Brooklyn when we were kids.”

“Nope,” Steve held up the fish taco he was eating briefly. “This is from Baja California so it definitely hadn’t reached us back then. And that,” he pointed at the poke, “is Hawaiian. And, shit, I don’t even remember seeing or hearing about avocados back then. And then this,” he held up the basket of wontons, “is apparently Chinese-American cuisine.”

Bucky nodded silently but his eyes were smiling as he continued to eat.

“People think it’s weird how interested I am in the food and where it came from,” Steve said as he looked towards the ocean again. “They have no idea how much it’s changed and, you know, the way that Dernier always talked about food it was like a religious experience.”

“He was French,” Bucky pointed out, as if that explained everything. “He always talked about food and wine.”

“Didn’t it ever make you curious?”

“I didn’t really think about it at the time,” Bucky was pensive. “I think I was just more concerned with surviving at all than what I’d be surviving _for_.” He sighed. “Guess that’s why you’re here, huh, Stevie? You’re a good reminder about _why_ I managed to survive.”

The sheepish grin on Steve’s face said it all.

Bucky looked around. “Strange…”

“What?”

He shook one hand at the side of his head. “Everything’s so muddied up in here. I mean, I didn’t go from falling in the Alps to waking up in the here and now but I didn’t really get a chance to sightsee when I was Hydra’s favorite asset. And I can’t say I was doing all that much when I went underground, either. It’s just strange to be in the world again and in a world that I don’t recognize a hell of a lot of.” Bucky looked at Steve. “I think you get it a little bit, right?”

Steve agreed. “People know _nothing_ about the time we grew up in, Buck, it’s bizarre. They seem to make assumptions based on whatever came after the war or they slam everything within a hundred year period together and they ask me if I remember the first air flight at Kitty Hawk or what it must have been like to see electric lights for the first time. And _no one_ seems to understand why I’m so pissed off about the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles!” He huffed loudly in indignation.

Bucky snickered.

“You know what else?” Steve continued. “They always get on me to catch up on what I missed out on. ‘Google it’ they tell me. They should practice what they preach and get acquainted with the thirties. For that matter, maybe read up and find out that the twenties weren’t all jazz clubs and speakeasies and flappers.”

“Well, there was some of that,” Bucky reminded him. 

“Not to the extent that they think,” Steve said. “And it’s not like either one of us were actually going to them in the twenties.”

“That’s true,” Bucky nodded. “Although next time they ask, we should just pretend we did. Never mind that we were all of eight, right? See how long it takes for them to figure it out. We’ll place bets on who figures it out and how fast.”

Steve leaned forward and gave Bucky a wet smack on the lips. “Finally! Someone who understands me.”

Bucky’s shy, soft smile in response was a treasure in itself.

_A treasure_ , Steve thought briefly and filed it away to think over later.

“Are we going to the beach or what?”

“We have some more driving to do,” Steve told him. “But it’s not too far.”

North of Ventura things changed dramatically. The highway narrowed down to four lanes, two going north and two going south, and suddenly housing developments and gas stations and shopping centers disappeared completely. All that was left was high hills on one side, valleys carved into the slopes and dotted with bright colors of wildflowers in bloom, and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

It didn’t take long for Steve to find a place to pull over so they could get a closer look. They weren’t the only ones but there were precious few people in this area so it felt like they were alone. They walked together silently on a beach that felt… wild. It wasn’t covered in people, there wasn’t a pier in sight, there weren’t lifeguards or vendors or anything really… it was just sand, rocks, wild untamed vegetation and the ocean.

“Why Italian?” Steve asked suddenly and Bucky stared at him because he’s not sure where that came from at all.

Steve cast a sidelong glance at Bucky before laughing. “You said I had to come up with a pet name for you in French or Italian. Why Italian?”

“Why not ask ‘why French?’”

“French is sexy, everyone knows that,” Steve waved a dismissive hand and then reached down to clasp Bucky’s with it. “But why Italian?”

“It reminds me of home,” Bucky sighed. “And you rescued me in Italy. Even if that’s where Hydra first started in on me, no one spoke Italian at me while they were doing it. But mostly… home.”

“Bit of a romantic, aren’t you?” Steve smiled.

“Shut up.”

“Aw,” Steve gave Bucky’s hand a sharp tug to pull him closer to wrap his arms around his neck. “Tesorino… it’s okay.” He kissed the tip of Bucky’s nose playfully. “You can be a romantic. I won’t tell.”

_Tesorino. Little treasure._ Bucky dipped his head against Steve’s neck, leaning into the embrace and clutching at Steve’s shoulders with his hands. He turned slightly to look at the ocean as they stand there and watch the sun shatter into a thousand pieces of white light on the rippling waves. There was a tightness in his chest because even though Bucky could never be sure if he was worth the risks and sacrifices Steve made for him there’s one thing that remains true.

Steve thought he was worth it. Steve Rogers gave a very large damn about him. Bucky Barnes was Steve Rogers’ treasure.

_Fuck the rest of the world_ , Bucky thought. _He’s my god damned treasure, too._


	5. Paso Robles

Excerpt from Bucky’s Notebook:

_I remember all too well what Steve looked like when he was young. I know what others saw when they looked at him. He was small and frail and made up of too many angles. His skin was pale and usually had a pallor to it that wasn’t healthy even in a place where robust health wasn’t all that common anyway. He had dark circles under his eyes and hollow cheeks. He walked around turned in on himself, quiet and solitary because he all too often felt the sting of rejection. Life itself seemed to reject him._

_That’s what other people saw._

_I saw a kid who was always trying to catch up, no matter what. I saw so much try in that little guy that even when everyone else saw someone easy to beat up I saw someone worth fighting for. He could see beautiful things with those eyes that always had dark circles under them. He was always smoothing his hair to one side and his hands and fingers were always beautifully delicate. He had the heart of a lion in that tiny, angular frame… he wanted to protect people who couldn’t stand up for themselves when he couldn’t even protect himself. I didn’t always understand that part of him but I admired it because stronger men than him had been beaten down by life by far less than what Steve had dealt with._

_After going through Project Rebirth the outside matched the inside._

_Other people see a strong fighter, a handsome man, a sentinel of liberty and freedom._

_Yeah, Steve’s a hell of a fighter but he always had fight in him. He’s still quiet and solitary but it’s less about life rejecting him so much as it’s the other way around these days. His hands and fingers are strong, but they’re still delicate. He has the hands of an artist… of a dreamer… and those are the hands that have traced the lines of my face and the scars on my body and made me feel like I am human again._

_Our roles have flipped. He wraps himself around me and promises to protect me and take care of me… and that’s what I need because now I’m the one who has been rejected by life. But not by him. I’m the one that’s all sharp angles and dark circles and seen by too many as what I became and not who I really am. But he sees me._

_This makes sense, doesn’t it? Was I put on this earth to shield him from so much when we were young so he could become what he is now so that he could shield me?_

_All I know is that we see each other, as we were, as we are, as we could be. I belong to him and he belongs to me and that’s enough._

_That’s everything._

“Why on earth would you go wine tasting when neither one of you can get drunk?” Sam asked over FaceTime.

“That’s exactly why,” Steve told him. “It’s called ‘wine tasting’ for a reason. It’s not called ‘wine now I’m gonna get drunk.’”

“Is this supposed to be your method of debate?”

“Well, Sam, you’re the one who asked the question. I just gave an answer.” Steve shrugged. “How are things in Wakanda?”

“I’m holding my own and learning a lot,” Sam said. “Which is about all a man can ask for in this situation. Also... “ he hesitated. “Shuri’s back.”

“Oh?” Steve glanced over at Bucky who was currently doing a combination of tai chi and yoga to loosen up. Bucky met Steve’s glance and a knowing smile twisted his lips.

“Yeah,” Sam’s brows knit together. “She’s still interested and I’m still not sure if that’s how to behave towards a man who gives you sanctuary.”

“I see,” Steve nodded and Bucky huffed out a quick laugh. “And what do Shuri and T’Challa say?”

“They find my attitude out-dated and quaint, respectively.” Sam scratched his neck. “Shuri says that if I’m not interested to just say so and stop hiding behind antiquated patriarchal ideals… which isn’t the case at all. I mean, you met her!”

Shuri was T’Challa’s younger sister, a princess of Wakanda, and was much like her brother. She was strong, intelligent, fierce and beautiful and had taken an interest in Sam upon returning to the palace from securing the southern border.

“Yes, she’s magnificent,” Steve agreed. “So I’m not sure what the problem is.”

“I just told you. It’s not right to repay a man for giving you sanctuary in his country by sleeping with his sister.”

“But T’Challa has said that’s not an issue,” Steve pointed out. “He said it’s up to Shuri to decide who she is interested in not him. It’s not like you’d be sneaking around behind his back. _That_ would be disrespectful. To her _and_ to him.”

Sam gave him a sour look. “You’re not helping, Steve.”

“Well, keep up with the ‘your brother won’t approve’ shit then,” Bucky called out from where he was. “She’ll get tired of that chicken shit response pretty damn quick.”

“Nobody asked you, Barnes! Hello, by the way.”

Bucky walked casually behind Steve on the way to the bathroom. “Hey, Sam.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Is he naked again?”

“What again?” Steve asked, eyes twinkling. “We just got up. He was naked all night.”

Sam groaned angrily.

“Hey, don’t take out your sexual frustrations on us!” Bucky came back out of the bathroom to peer into the iPad that Sam and Steve were chatting on. “You’ve got a beautiful, vibrant woman who is interested in taking you to her bed. God knows why but there it is. And you’re dragging your feet because of some concept of decorum that you have been expressly told isn’t an issue. At some point, Shuri’s going to come to one of two conclusions: either you’re lying about being interested which she’ll find insulting, or you’re just fucking stupid and she’s going to decide that a hot body with a dullard’s mind isn’t that interesting after all. Either way, you lose out and then what?”

“Shove it up your ass, Barnes!”

“Shove what up my where?” Bucky asked innocently. “Well, if you insist… hold on a second…” he grappled with Steve briefly. “Okay, hold still,” before sitting on Steve’s lap with a loud groan of satisfaction.

Bucky was obviously messing with Sam who was watching the proceedings stoically wearing an expression of ‘this is the shit I have to put up with now?’

Steve was nearly paralyzed with silent laughter.

“Okay,” Bucky said breathlessly, “so where were we?”

“I’m not doing this with you.”

“You know, it’s not every day that a legitimate, honest to God princess invites someone to be her…” he looked over his shoulder at Steve who was still grinning like a fool over the whole situation, “what’s the word? Paramour? Gentleman caller?”

Steve shrugged. “I never got to that part in the handbook. Suitor? No, that’s not right. I don’t think Shuri’s interested in marriage at the moment. That’s T’Challa’s cross to bear these days.”

“And don’t think she’s probably enjoying the idea of taking a lover,” Bucky nodded, “without all the extra baggage that T’Challa is going to be dealing with every single time he talks to a woman.” He looked back at Steve again. “Is that the fate I saved you from, Dollface?”

“All right,” Steve gave him a nudge. “Get off me.”

“I’m not done yet!” Bucky wiggled in Steve’s lap. “If Sam would get over his… whatever this is that he needs to get over, he could be doing what we’re doing _right now_!”

“We’re not _doing_ anything!” Steve shot back and grabbed Bucky’s shoulders to physically remove him.

Sam was gifted with a front row seat to two extremely strong men with two extremely stubborn streaks engaging in some sort of grappling contest that resulted in neither one of them moving very much despite the obvious strain. “You know, I can put myself out of this misery just by pushing a button. I thought I’d be spared your ridiculous super-soldier whatever the fuck this is by only talking to you guys every couple of days.”

“You thought wrong then, didn’t you?” Bucky asked which diverted his attention just enough for Steve to do something that made Bucky over correct and the result was the both of them toppling over. Peals of laughter followed before Steve managed to pull himself up to talk again.

And Sam was taken aback for a moment because he honestly had never seen Steve so purely happy before. He felt himself getting a little choked up because it showed how desperately and deeply unhappy Steve had been for so long… and everyone just thought that was normal.

“Listen Sam,” Steve caught his breath. “I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. As the foremost expert on waiting too long… don’t. If you’re that concerned, talk to T’Challa again. Talk to Shuri. It can’t hurt to clarify your thoughts on it all. I have every faith that you’ll figure it all out.”

Sam didn’t share Steve’s faith but he took it all the same. They said goodbye and Bucky tugged at Steve’s waistband. 

“Now that you’ve given romantic advice to your bird friend, get back down here and finish what you started.”

“What I started?” Steve grinned. “Who sat on who’s lap? And then started wiggling around?”

“You’re _not_ going to leave me on the floor like this, Stevie… that’s just cruel and that’s something you’ve _never_ been.”

Steve looked down at Bucky, all splayed out and inviting, and smiled warmly. “No… not likely to start now either.” He stretched out on top of Bucky. “I guess we’re not in any _real_ hurry…”

Several hours later, Bucky and Steve sat at a table under a pergola draped in wisteria. The landscape, covered in salvia and lavender, dipped down to a pond. Three weeping willows dotted the edge of the pond with tall grasses creating a wall on one side. Geese rooted in the grass under the willow tree on the far side. Hummingbirds and bumblebees zoomed about and wisteria petals drifted down when a breeze shook them loose.

The wine is good, for all that they know about it. Going down the list of tasting notes and reading things like ‘silky tannins’ ‘dusty tannins’ ‘earthy notes’ left them both wondering what the hell was going on. When they first came outside the tasting room to enjoy the seating area, they spent most of their time trying to identify the tastes of the wine they were drinking. Soon, they fell into a companionable silence.

When Steve went to get them both another tasting, Bucky leaned back in the chair and soaked it all in.

The birds were singing in the surrounding trees and the breeze rustled the wisteria so that it whispered. The sky was blue with wisps of clouds high in the atmosphere and every direction he looked, the land sloped down into fields and fields of vineyards. The vineyards were only barely green, it being early in the season still.

It was all so beautiful.

Steve came back to find Bucky sitting with his eyes closed, dark hair peppered with soft purple wisteria petals. “Tesorino,” he breathed, “You look gorgeous.”

Bucky opened his eyes. “Is this a dream?”

“No,” Steve sat down. “It’s real.”

“Had to be,” Bucky nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like this, how could I dream it up on my own?”

Other vineyards had been more grand. Beautiful, certainly, but grand in a way that was off-putting. This place was like the kind of place people dreamt about when they were kids growing up in a Depression hit city; A farmhouse on a hill overlooking a pond, birds and flowers, lots of space, lots of peace and quiet…

“I went from Brooklyn, the poorer parts of Brooklyn, to the war, to a cryo-tube and dungeons,” Bucky said softly. “Never saw a place like this. I used to wonder if things would be better if I could get you out of the city and onto a little farm somewhere…”

Steve smiled. “What the hell would I do on a farm, Buck? I wasn’t cut out for hard labor.”

“I would have handled that… you needed fresh air and room and warm beds and good food.”

Steve’s smile broadened and he leaned his cheek on his hand. “Did we always feel this way about each other, Buck?”

Bucky considered that. “I don’t know… maybe we did? Did we really not know?”

Steve reached forward and plucked a petal from Bucky’s hair. “Well, it’s possible. I mean, how much time did we spend considering _feelings_ back then, you know? All I knew was that when I had nothing, I had you. We’ve seemed to come full circle. I don’t _care_ if I have nothing as long as I have you.”

“You don’t have nothing, Steve.”

“No,” Steve agreed. “I have you. I just said that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Not sure I do,” Steve sighed. “I don’t carry the shield anymore and even though T’Challa’s leading the charge on fixing all of the ridiculous amount of things that were wrong with the Accords to start with, they’re still there and we’re still, technically, barred from doing anything with these abilities we have. It’s bullshit… you can’t stop people from trying to help. You can’t. It’s just _never_ going to happen. And I still have no idea what I want to do with my life…”

“Well, I know what I want to do with mine,” Bucky said firmly. “I want to spend time in places like this… where the sun is on my face, or flower petals are falling in my hair, or whatever. Where I can look down that hill and count the number of other houses I see on one hand. I want you to start painting again. I want to experience the things we’ve missed out on for the past 70 years. I want to be able to reach out when I’m falling asleep and feel you and know you’re there. I want to roll over in the middle of the night and bite your neck and get you all wound up so we don’t sleep for the next hour. I want us to find a place that we belong together and when the various countries that tried to punish you for protecting as many people as you could pull their heads out of their asses and ask you to serve again… I want to be there with you because I know how good we are together. Especially now that I can keep up.

“Mostly, Steve… I want to create as many good memories as I have bad ones and then I want to tip the scales in the good’s favor and I want you to be there with me the whole way.”

“Till the end of the line,” Steve’s eyes glistened. 

“They did some amazing things in Wakanda,” Bucky sniffed at the glass of wine before taking a sip and letting it rest on his tongue for a moment. “That they were able to pick through my head and find the triggers, regulate my body and I know they did some therapy while I was under, too.”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded.

“They asked you to help with that, didn’t they?”

“They did,” Steve sighed. “I really didn’t know if I was the right choice.”

“How could you not be?”

“I didn’t want to put all of my stuff on you, Buck,” Steve told him sincerely. “I didn’t want to condition you the way Hydra did. Even if I had the best intentions I didn’t want to put any of my shit on you, especially while you were helpless.”

“You told them something. I know you did, they told me so.”

“I did.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them to make sure you knew it was safe for you to want things for yourself. Hydra took you… and they used you… and they took away your own agency and they didn’t care,” Steve covered his eyes with one hand. “And now I’m gonna start bawling like a baby… all I wanted for you was for you to be allowed to want things for yourself. Not for Hydra… not for me… for you.”

Bucky just beamed at him, tears falling down his cheeks. “That’s so like you, Stevie. I just wonder one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Why can’t you do that for yourself?”

Steve didn’t say anything. He just took a drink of his wine and stared out at the pond.

“You’re allowed to want things, too, Sweetheart.”

“I want you,” Steve said firmly.

“You’ve _got_ me,” Bucky assured him. “Now you’ve got to work on wanting some other things for yourself. Maybe you should have done some therapy in Wakanda, too. Maybe I’ll recommend it when we get back.”

Steve grunted softly in response.

“How are we supposed to have a life together if you don’t even know how to live one?”

“Never was very good at it, was I?”

“No,” Bucky shook his head. “Because everyone already expected you to die. The only thing you seemed to want was to do it on your own terms. Even when you turned into this super soldier you were as reckless as ever. More so, even. Now you’ve got something to live for, Stevie, so I’m asking you to figure out what that means and what you want.”

“You’re right.”

“Damn right, I’m right.” Bucky shot out of his chair and leaned over Steve, kissing him quickly several times. “We’ve got a lot of time ahead of us, you know. It’d be really nice if you actually enjoyed it. And I’m not fixed, you know. I’ve still got a lot of shit in my brain that needs dealing with so, you know, it would really help me out if you were in a healthier headspace yourself.”

“Your ability to talk me into things hasn’t changed,” Steve dragged his fingers lazily along the side of Bucky’s face and down his neck. “At least this time I won’t end up barfing into a trashcan just off the Cyclone.”

“Don’t rule it out,” Bucky quipped sitting down again. “I want you to be happy, Stevie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, you know. If you expect me to hang around and make you happy the way you want me to, you’d better learn to live with it.”

“Okay, Soldier, okay,” Steve heaved a sigh but he smiled gently. “Guess we’d better get some painting supplies, huh?”

“It’s a start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The vineyard Steve and Bucky wind up at is one of my favorites: Graveyard Winery. There is wisteria in the spring and the pond with the geese is there year round. It's a smaller location which I thought would suit them a bit better than some of the others I love to visit.


	6. Chapter 6

Excerpt from Bucky’s notebook:

_I still don’t know how to shift my outlook._

_I don’t think Steve does, either._

_We came from a world of limited opportunities. We were both born at the end of the War to End All Wars only to wind up fighting in an even bigger one when we were still too young to even understand what that meant. We grew up in a poor, rough area where things like ‘dreams’ didn’t survive for very long._

_I had potential. Everyone said so. I know people wondered why I was so willing to ‘throw away’ my potential by hanging around Steve._

_I get so fucking angry when I think of those people. I got angry then… I’m even angrier now. At just… how casually people tried to throw him away. How they never took the fucking time to look at him and see him,_ really see him. 

_Steve’s an artist but now he’s a warrior. All he ever wanted was to be useful and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself. I was a protector who became a killer and I have no idea how to live a life that doesn’t involve orders. I want more than anything to live a life that doesn’t involve orders but what does that even mean?_

_Neither Steve nor I know how to live in the world anymore. Sometimes I wonder if we ever did. Maybe we were just floundering through rough waters trying not to drown… I don’t know if that can be considered living._

_Sam would ask me what I want to do. He’s a counselor, it’s what he does._

_What I want to do is take Steve and go back to 1936 and find a way for us to start over… and do it right. To tell him that I love him and that he’s perfect just the way he is and that we’ll figure it all out. That he’ll become a famous artist and I’ll do anything I can to make it happen. Because one thing I’ve figured out from these notes is that I loved that skinny kid who never ran away from a fight._ Really loved him. I just want to go back and tell him that, so that he knows...

_But I can’t do that. I can’t go back. None of us can. So I have to move forward._

_The only thing I do know is that I’m never leaving Steve behind again… no matter what war comes my way… or anything else for that matter. We’ll get this life figured out. We can do it._

_He’s carried so much on those shoulders… including me, bloodied and dazed and missing an arm after the fight with Stark… and I’ve got a lot of shit to deal with. Steve’s a hell of a fighter. So am I. We should be more than a match for anything together._

_If we can do anything we want, the way Sam says we can, then we will._

_We just have to figure out what that is._

The air smelled damp and rich and loamy. It smelled of greenery and water and good earth.

Not that Bucky really knew what good earth smelled like. He still wasn’t sure what the earth notes were supposed to be in that wine they drank. However, this smelled different. It smelled different even from Wakanda which was about as good of earth as Bucky could imagine.

The channel they were in consisted of rock walls that went straight up from the creekbed and those walls were covered in ferns. Rivulets of water cascaded down the fern covered rocks and planks or fallen trees crossed the creek in many places. The forest that surrounded them was filled with tall redwood trees. The air was cool and damp and Bucky balanced on a plank to look back at Steve.

Steve was sitting on the ground. The smooth stones of the creekbed were fairly dry in some areas and that’s where Steve was. He sat, legs splayed out in front of him, leaning back on his hands and staring up towards the sky.

Bucky watched him for several moments and wondered what Steve was seeing, how his artistic eye viewed the expanse of trees that towered over them and left the ground sun-dappled in swaying shifting patterns as the wind moved through the boughs above. He almost called out to him to ask what he was looking at or what he was thinking but, instead, he just watched. He could see Steve as he was back when they were young, back before the war, but it was strange how the images of how he was then and how he was now melded together.

Truth be told, Bucky had always seen Steve differently than everyone else. The two forms blurred together because Steve was always a beautiful, fierce creature that did not fit with those around him.

He went and sat down next to Steve, leaning heavily against him and tilting his head up to look into the trees.

Steve sighed softly. “Our getaway is almost over.”

“I know.” They were meeting a Wakandan envoy the next day to head back to the Royal Palace. On a voyage that was very convoluted for very good reasons. Tensions had eased and they weren’t exactly wanted fugitives but they weren’t exactly welcome, either. It was a strange place to be and Steve resented the hell out of it. Bucky was used to it which Steve resented even more. Steve’s outrage on Bucky’s behalf was both endearing and amusing. Bucky let him have it, better to let Steve tilt at windmills between them and get it out of his system before he had to appear in any kind of official adjacent capacity so he could keep that cool, calm, Captain America exterior that was expected.

Bucky continued to find it hilarious that people thought Steve was a steady voice of reason as opposed to the wildly radical creature he actually was.

“There’s a guy in Hell’s Kitchen,” Steve said after another few moments of silence. “He’s running around in a devil outfit trying to make the neighborhood better.”

“Hell’s Kitchen, huh?” Bucky nodded slowly. “In a devil outfit?”

“Brought down a crimelord,” Steve continued. 

“Guy’s gotta be Catholic,” Bucky chuckled. “A good Irish Catholic boy like somebody I know,” he elbowed Steve in the ribs.

“I was never a good Catholic,” Steve reminded him.

“That’s right, you gave up religion in the thirties,” Bucky nodded. “Still, that over-developed sense of morality has its roots deep in your mother’s upbringing.”

“He brought down a crimelord,” Steve repeated. “A guy who had money and power and influence and used it in the worst way possible. After that… another guy showed up, ex-military and he started cleaning out Hell’s Kitchen, too… in a more permanent way.” He sighed. “Some people say that the devil guy inspired the ex-military guy. And they also say that Hell’s Kitchen was doing all right until ‘The Battle of New York’ that the rest of the team and I fought in.”

Bucky frowned. “You mean when the sky opened up and aliens poured out of it?”

“Yeah.”

“And then the oversight committee decided it would be a good idea to send a nuclear missile to wipe out the city?”

“Yeah.”

“It feels like you’re gearing up to make a point,” Bucky said gently. “And I’m getting the idea that this point you’re about to make is one I might have to thump you for.”

Steve huffed out a laugh. “Maybe.”

“You can’t carry the world on your shoulders, Steve. Not even the shoulders you have now. It just can’t be done. This General Ross asshole can show you pictures of damage all he wants… you have saved the world repeatedly and most of those situations were thrust upon you not created by you.”

“But Project Rebirth…”

“Was not anything new, really,” Bucky sighed. “Humans have a long history of altering the way of war. We didn’t go from throwing rocks at each other to creating you. You were a link in a very long chain.”

“So were you,” Steve looked at Bucky with a sad smile.

“So was I,” Bucky agreed. “It was against my will, it was done to me, and you volunteered because you wanted to help. This guy in the devil suit probably wants to help. Maybe he gets a charge out of it but, let’s be honest, you’ve always jumped into the fray even when you shouldn’t have. This Erskine guy didn’t put that in you, it was already there.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re going to ask for your help again at some point, Steve.”

“They’ll probably demand it,” Steve said ruefully.

“You could always tell them to go fuck themselves.”

Steve barked out a laugh. “You think?”

“You’ve always done what you wanted for as long as I’ve known you, why would things be different now?” Bucky looked around. “But you’re a good man, Stevie. You always have been and I know how hard you work to remain so. If others can’t see that, the fault is theirs.”

They let the silence drag out for several minutes. “I wish you could meet Thor.”

“Your Nordic god buddy?” Bucky smirked. “Why’s that?”

“Ever thought that would be a thing you could do?” Steve laughed. “Guy’s got a whole day named after him.”

“What’s he like?”

“Huge. Makes me feel small again.”

“That bother you?”

“No, he’s a good guy. He can literally call lightning from the sky and make it rain. It’s astounding. He wears a big, red cape and it looks totally natural on him.”

“I might have to point out your particular battle style, Stevie. It doesn’t exactly blend in.”

“He went to go looking for some answers,” Steve continued, ignoring Bucky’s dig about his uniform. “We haven’t heard anything from him in awhile but, when we do…”

“When we do?”

Steve looked at Bucky. “I don’t think the Accords are going to be worth the paper they’re written on.”

Bucky scooted closer to Steve so that their shoulders and arms were touching. He looked around at this beautiful forest with it’s trees that stretched so far up to the sky and the canyon of ferns they were in with the creek lazily bubbling by. Of course Steve would choose a place like this to talk about it all because when Steve was surrounded by art and beauty his mind really started working. Bucky wondered of other people knew that.

“Remember when the world was the street where we lived?”

“Yeah,” Bucky did remember. Bucky remembered when his world was the bed that Steve lay in, hacking and coughing, clammy and fevered.

“The size of the world changes,” Steve sighed, still looking up into the trees. “The street where you live, the smile of the one you love, a continent across an ocean where people are dying, a crevasse in a mountain range where you lose the most important thing in your life, a street in DC where you see eyes you never thought you’d see again for the first time in over seventy years… the size of the world changes. Except that it doesn’t really. It’s still the same size it ever was, it’s just what your perception sees it as.”

Bucky just waited.

“Thor talks about nine realms and, yeah, I went and looked it up later… Asgard, Midgard, Alfheim, Helheim, Jotunheim…”

“That’s only five.”

“Shut up,” Steve nudged him. “The aliens that Loki brought in through a hole in the fucking sky? Not from any of those realms. So that means there’s more realms or worlds or whatever out there. And these stones that he’s looking for, Infinity Stones...”

“Well that’s a grand name, isn’t it?”

“The Tesseract is one of them.”

Bucky went quiet then. He looked at the brook that was flowing by them and remembering the first time he saw blue bolts streak across the darkened battlefield and _disintegrate_ the men they hit. He remembered the eerie blue glow of certain items in the lab they dragged him to.

He shuddered involuntarily.

Steve shifted and put his arm around Bucky. “There’s something coming and it’s not going to care about the silly borders we draw on a map or some ‘agreement’ that’s put down on paper. Thor said there were three stones that had revealed themselves in the last few years… the Tesseract, some strange swirling red smoke that hit London and I don’t think there’s been a third. That means it’s happened somewhere else, on some other world.

“It doesn’t matter how big we think the world is… it’s just one place. It’s not just us.”

“Christ, Steve, you really know how to end a vacation on a sour note.”

He laughed, deep and rich and hugged Bucky against him. “I’ve been trying to figure out where we go from here. What do we do? And I just realized, sitting here, that it really doesn’t matter. The figuring out part, I mean. What’s going to happen is going to happen and we may get a warning or we may not. We’ll fight whatever’s coming because that’s what we do but in the meantime…” Steve straightened up slightly to turn and grab Bucky’s face in his hands. “I’m living with you and I’m loving you,” he kissed Bucky then, putting all of the heat and desire and love he could into it, “and I’ll fight like hell to hold onto us. They thought I could fight before… just watch what I can do if someone tries to take you away from me again.”

Bucky kept kissing him. Short, sloppy kisses all over his face because Steve was right. The little shit usually was. Things were happening even as they’d grabbed this little respite in the middle of it all but it didn’t really matter what was happening because they’d fight it. They’d fight it together.

“Come on,” Steve got to his feet in one fluid motion, reaching his hand out for Bucky. “I’m glad we came here. We saw some things on this trip, haven’t we?”

“We saw a Packard Coupe,” Bucky nodded. “Whole trip, worth it, right there.”

Steve laughed again and Bucky smiled. It felt good to hear Steve laugh, even if he had been talking about some off-world doom that was heading their way.

Then again, Steve found humor in the most insane things. He had mastered gallows humor by the time he was seven.

“I love you, James Barnes.”

Bucky felt himself blush. Steve so very rarely called him by his given name. It had always been ‘Bucky’ from the time they met but, every now and then, when Steve felt particularly serious he’d say ‘James.’ The first time was when Steve was deathly ill and trying to bequeath his meager possessions to his best friend at the age of nine. This wasn’t as morbid as that time but Bucky knew that Steve was just trying to tell him how serious he was.

“I love you, too, you fucking little punk.”

Steve’s smile was brighter than the sun and Bucky felt like his heart would flat out burst from it.

“So, do you think Sam will have given into Shuri by the time we get back?”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Because we’ll get on his ass about it.”

“Yeah… he’s really shooting himself in the foot on this one.”

“Don’t be too hard on him, I mean, how long did it take us to figure out we were in love?”

“Well, he should take us as an example of what not to do. Besides, they aren’t even considering love. Shuri wants to do unspeakable Wakandan sexual magic on him. That doesn’t require seventy years of ‘oh, I guess this was love after all’ insanity.”

“Hey,” Bucky pulled at Steve’s hand. “How about you do unspeakable Wakandan sexual magic to me?”

Steve grinned. “I haven’t been allowed to know the details of such things,” he admitted. “But I’m more than happy to perform unspeakable Brooklyn sexual magic on you.”

“Now we’re talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it. That's my first Steve/Bucky fic. A little drabble spending time with these two idiots in love. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
